February 27, 2018

For those confused by the media, Trump supporters are not a cult

I was reading s Drudge link today, to the woefully liberal New Republic about how Trump can win re-election in 2020. This as he's announced he will run for re-election. Well into the article, political polling analyst Larry Sabato had this to offer:

“I would say the most distinctive thing about him other than his obnoxiousness is that his followers aren’t a base,” Sabato said. “They’re a cult. This is a cult. They’ve ceded their independent thinking to this man. This is the most intense cult that I can remember in American politics.”

After the visceral reaction of - "screw you Larry"; you either have drunk the liberal Kool-Aid or else are speaking for a liberal audience and being deliberately condescending and vitriolic in your analysis of Trump supporters - there's actually a reasonable retort to it.

Firstly, like probably every.single.Trump.supporter, I do not agree with the president on everything. There are things he's pushed for that I think are bad ideas. However, on the whole I support him. The same cannot be said for a lot of Democrat supporters on the left;

At least let's call it a saw-off (a tie). But here's the real problem with Sabato's analysis - he's looking at it from the wrong lens. The liberal media has pushed SO HARD at president Trump on everything that they have created a reflexive reaction among his supporters - they have solidified the support of Trump supporters as a reaction to their over-the-top negativity. It's never been a cult of personality - it's a reaction to bias, and even deeper than that, it's a reaction to the liberal cultural elite. It's not even about Trump, it's about an equal and opposite reaction to the liberal hammering of conservatives.

I used to read Sabato's blog regularly, but he's proven on more than one occasion to be less than factually based. Maybe it's time to move on. As far as the whole cult of personality thing, it's way off base.